Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already started ghostwriting books and judgments, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairperson, Justice V Ramasubramanian observed, in a lighter vein, on Wednesday.

The former Supreme Court judge delivered a humour-laden speech at the launch of a book titled 'Informational Privacy: Constitutional and Common Law Remedies', authored by Nina Rohinton Nariman.

"AI has already started writing some books in the name of authors. AI has also started writing judgments. Fortunately, this book is not written by AI but by NI—Native Intelligence," he remarked.

The book was launched by the NHRC Chairperson and Senior Advocate Madhavi Gorodia Divan.

Retired Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and his spouse Sanaya Nariman were also present at the book launch.

Justice Ramasubramanian reflected on how deeply technology has intruded into private lives. He recounted a personal experience after Saturn’s astrological transition, stating,

"When I opened my eyes, I saw hundreds of messages on what ‘pariharas’ to do. I realised Google knows much more about us than our spouses do. It is in this context that informational privacy is very important."

Highlighting the hidden costs of digital services, he also warned,

"When you log in to social media, you are both a consumer and a product. The first lesson all of us should learn is that when somebody offers something free of cost, he is actually offering you as a service to someone else."

Justice Ramasubramanian cited global regulatory efforts to rein in Big Tech, mentioning massive fines imposed by the European Union on data companies for privacy violations.

"The (former) CEO of Sun Microsystems said, ‘Privacy is dead with the advent of the Internet—get over it.’ We have not yet reached that stage, but privacy is on life support," he added.

He also recalled a conversation with former Supreme Court judge Justice Rohinton Nariman, who jokingly cautioned him, "Ram, don’t go too humorous. You may not get bail!"

Senior Advocate Madhavi Divan, in her address, warned about the threats to informational privacy in the digital age.

She remarked that while freedom of speech is often discussed, "What good is freedom of speech without freedom of thought? In the age of data mining, what is being robbed from us is freedom of thought."

Drawing attention to recent pop culture trends, she cited the rising Ghibli craze, where AI platform ChatGPT is used to transform photographs into animated images reminiscent of the animation style used by Japanese animation studio Ghibli.

Divan cited the trend as an example of how art is increasingly being commodified and how people are willing to surrender personal data for trivial digital experiences.

"The normalisation of the surrender of personal data is very problematic. It shows how an educated generation of netizens so easily gives up its data. This is the troublesome thing—we have been lulled or dulled into following the herd," she said.

She also spoke about the larger consequences of data monetization.

"Human attention has become a scarce commodity, so scarce that it is being monetized. Our own data is being used to determine what we like and don’t like. While we imagine we are consumers of information, we are actually the products being offered to advertisers. This can be used for anything from product choices to electoral choices," she said.

Addressing the intersection of informational privacy and national security, Divan referred to the ongoing US-TikTok dispute, stressing the need for stronger privacy protections.

"Given how pressing the issue is, it’s actually an irony how long it took us to declare privacy as a fundamental right."

She further called for extending the principle of the right to be forgotten to algorithms, arguing that "algorithms should also be trained to forget."

Addressing the audience very briefly, Justice Rohinton Nariman stressed the need for a larger judicial bench to revisit the scope of Article 226 (of the Constitution) doctrine.

He argued that privacy protections should extend beyond fundamental rights and be enforceable against private entities as well.

"According to me, it’s very important that a seven- or nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court revisits the public aspects doctrine and extends it to non-fundamental rights," he said.

Concluding the event, Nina Nariman emphasised the need to use Article 226 as a tool to address breaches of informational privacy.